Thursday, April 17, 2014

NSA leaker Edward Snowden put a direct question to Vladimir Putin during a live televised question-and-answer session Thursday, asking Russia's president about Moscow's use of mass surveillance on its citizens.

Speaking via a video link, Snowden asked: "I've seen little public discussion of Russia's own involvement in the policies of mass surveillance, so I'd like to ask you: Does Russia intercept, store or analyze, in any way, the communications of millions of individuals?"

Needless to say, this entire episode appears to have been orchestrated by Vladdy:

"Our intelligence efforts are strictly regulated by our law so...you have to get a court permission to stalk that particular person.

"We don't have as much money as they have in the States and we don't have these technical devices that they have in the States. Our special services, thank God, are strictly controlled by society and the law and regulated by the law."

Excuse me a sec. I feel a sneeze coming on…..AhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhBULLSHI!

There, that’s better.

Putin’s former employer, the KGB, practically invented the surveillance state and made it an art form. Who the hell does he think he’s kidding?

Watching Edward Snowden genuflect to a world leader is, however, a very tasty morsel of vengeance, to be sure. Any credibility he may have had in the debate over surveillance and domestic intelligence has likely been spent.

Look, there is no doubt that the Snowden story was the story of 2013. Even the Pulitzer Committee has admitted as much. It finally got people, both in and out of power, to focus on what we on the far left have been complaining about for ten years: that privacy isn’t a gift, that we have to maintain vigilance, and that the contract between government and the governed is a fragile thing when we abdicate our responsibility to pay attention.

That it took a vole-ish little wisp of a man to focus lights on the problem speaks poorly about our democracy. That he now defends Vladimir Putin speaks poorly of him.

"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Matt Santos, The West Wing